With step one of England's exit out of lockdown now in full swing, marked on Monday with children's return to school, cases across the district - and the United Kingdom - are steadily decreasing.

At the time of publishing, St Albans had 28 confirmed coronavirus cases between February 27 and March 5, down 40 compared with the previous week.

Across St Albans district, there are currently just 19 COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people; making this week the third consecutive week that cases have sat below 100 per 100,000 since the Herts Ad commenced these weekly bulletins.

Last week, this number sat at 46 cases per 100,000 residents.

A total of 7,669 cases have been recorded in St Albans up to March 9, since records began last year.

The average area in England has 50 infections per 100,000, which continues to show a significant decrease across the nation, as well as in our area.

St Albans currently has the lowest amount of cases per 100,000 in Herts. Neighbouring Welwyn Hatfield has 67 cases per 100,000, Hertsmere has 38 per 100,000, as well as 63 cases per 100,000 being recorded in Dacorum.

Across the district, 39,219 have had the first dose of the vaccine to February 28.

On March 10, government data states that, as of March 8, 2,434 people across Herts are registered to have died within 28 days of their first positive coronavirus test, with 304 of those hailing from St Albans district.

According to the government's coronavirus dashboard, 124,797 across the UK have now sadly died within 28 days of a positive COVID-19 as of March 9. 143,259 deaths have been recorded in the UK with COVID-19 mentioned as a cause of death on the death certificate.

The UK’s R-number, which represents the rate of transmission, is now between 0.7 and 0.9, meaning the rate of transmission is declining across the whole of the UK as the R-number sits below one. In the East of England, the R-number continues to sit between 0.6 and 0.8 as of March 5.